MMAjunkie.com Radio on Tour, Part 4: MMA clinics and troops vs. fighters

MMAjunkie.com Radio co-hosts “Gorgeous” George Garcia and Brian “Goze” Garcia, as well as UFC fighters Jake Ellenberger and Amir Sadollah and MMA/boxing cutman Jacob “Stitch” Duran, are overseas and visiting U.S. troops as part of an MMA-themed Armed Forces Entertainment tour. George Garcia is penning a journal during the journey. Check out Part 3.

I’m going to back to our timeline and catch you up on what we did between Oct, 16-19 in a future blog. For now, though, I wanted to tell you about our travels and how they mixed with our careers in MMA.

We’ve done about 7-8 MMA clinics and meet and greets so far. Armed Forces Entertainment has done a great job of letting the troops at different bases know that we’re coming. After we arrive at a base, we’re greeting by a high ranking officer, and we’re always informed of where we need to go and what we need to do in case of an attack.

We’re then given an itinerary and some downtime before we make our way to the gym where we’re doing our clinics. At every clinic, there are mats, as well as chairs for onlookers. And about 20-30 brave men and women who are ready to learn and participate.

I would bring the guys to the mat and give a quick intro. This is the MMAjunkie.com Radio tour, so I would start off with a brief intro on myself and Goze, our radio show and our website as a whole. I’d then introduce Jake Ellenberger and Amir Sadollah, and talk about their accomplishments and their upcoming fights. For Jake, it’s early next year in Singapore vs. Tarec Saffiedine. Amir, however, is recovering from injuries and doesn’t have a current fight booking.

“Stitch” Duran, of course, is a legend in MMA and boxing, and he really needs no introduction. While fighters fight about three times a year, Stitch is literally on a plane every weekend. And you see him before, during and after most fights on a UFC card.

Jake would then take them all through about a 3-5 minute warmup as I would try to convince a few from the audience not to be shy and to get on out there and participate. Jake and Amir were really good with the troops, and I knew they could accommodate beginners and advanced skill sets. I would always manage to convince an extra 2-3 men and women to partake in the clinics.

Stitch and Goze would mingle with troops and officers in the audience before their duties would commence as well.

According to how much time we had, Jake and Amir would do about a 25-50-25 split of our allotted time: 25 percent would be striking and standing clinch technique, 50 percent would be the takedown from the clinch into side control with options for submission setups or ground and pound, and the final 25 percent gave everyone a chance to try it out live. The guys really flowed well together, and they would take turns discussing the minor details that make so much of a difference. It was cool to see everyone huddle around these guys and take mental notes and then practice the drills.

Not wanting to take any attention from the fighters, I would then signal Stitch to commence his hand-wrapping demonstrations. We always had someone in mind already, but through his chat with the men and women in the early parts of the clinics, he’d always find someone he might’ve clicked with and also added them to his list of wraps. We wish we could wrap everyone, but time didn’t allow it. He would always stop and take questions, and then after creating the wraps, he’d sign them and take a pic. Everyone who had their hands wrapped had big smiles on their faces.

Goze would do one-on-one interviews with the troops and ask them about themselves personally and also about them being MMA fans. Favorite fighters, fights they were looking forward to, predictions on upcoming fights, etc. And he would also ask them about their experiences in the military and the clinics we put on.

Towards the end, that last 25 percent of the allotted time was for live grappling. Everyone wanted to grapple with Jake and Amir, and we did our best to make that happen. I would run that last part of practice and keep the clock and partner people up.

It was one big cohesive unit, and we always had a great time, no matter the conditions or hectic schedules. We’d then do some group pics, individual pics and sign some autographs, and it would be time to go. Literally straight to the awaiting Black Hawk helos that transported us. One time, it was like a movie scene. I’ll tell you all about that on a future blog.

Thinking about all of you, thousands of miles away in Afghanistan.

-GG (call sign “FLY”)

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“Gorgeous” George Garcia is host and director of operations for MMAjunkie.com Radio. He’s producing a journal in conjunction with his MMA-themed Armed Forces Entertainment tour in Southwest Asia. Following him on Twitter at @MMAjunkieGeorge for additional updates.

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